>T Patrick 

THE FATHE R OFA SaCRED NATION 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf L.„ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



St. Patrick 



ST. PATRICK, 



THE FATHER OF A SACRED NATION 



A LECTURE 



Rev. J. F. LOUGHLIN, D.D. A hW-«c 




PUBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT OF 

The Church of Our Lady of the Rosary 
PHILADELPHIA 



Thb Library 






Copyright, i88g, by Rev. J, F. Loughlin^ D.D. 



ST. PATRICK, 

The Father of a Sacred Nation. 



And the Lord said to Abram : * Go forth out of thy 
country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy 
father's house ; and come into the land which I 
shall show thee. And I will make thee a great 
nation, and I will bless thee and magnify thy 
name, and thou shalt be blessed. I will bless 
them that bless thee, and curse them that curse 
thee ; and in thee shall all the kindred of the 
earth be blessed." — Genesis XII. 




DDRESSING myself this even- 
ing to the task, so. dear to every 
priest whose veins are warm 
with Celtic blood, of paying this annual 
tribute of praise to St. Patrick and the 
consecrated land of our fathers, I must, 
first of all, cast aside the vain hope of being 
able to say anything new upon a subject 
which for many generations has engaged 
the talents of one of the most eloquent 

(5) 



6 57: PATRICK. 

races of the modern world. Fortunately, 
you do not expect or wish to hear anything 
new on this subject; the perennial charm 
of the theme, like that of the old, familiar 
melodies of our fatherland, lies mainly in 
the hallowed memories which sway your 
souls as you listen. I have, therefore, de- 
termined to follow the well-beaten track; 
and I have chosen for my text that passage 
of Holy Writ which the wisdom of my 
predecessors has oftenest selected as the 
most appropriate. Indeed, there exists so 
striking a resemblance between the office 
and mission of the Irish apostle and his 
children in the New Dispensation, and the 
office and mission of the illustrious patri- 
arch and his seed in the old, that this com- 
mand given by Almighty God to Abraham, 
and these promises made to him and his 
descendants, may, without the change of 
one iota, be transferred to St. Patrick and 
his people. At a time when ignorance and 



ST. PATRICK. 7 

error were creeping over the earth and 
involving all the children of Adam in gross 
darkness, the Lord called Abraham forth 
from his country and his kindred to make 
him the father of a sacred nation, of a na- 
tion which should remain the dwelling- 
place of light and truth amidst the universal 
gloom, and which, in God's appointed time, 
should communicate its inherited blessings 
to all the kindred of the earth. 

Now, coming down to the fifth century 
of the Christian era, we find in the calling 
of St. Patrick an exact counterpart to the 
calling of Abraham. True religion appeared 
to be once more upon the point of disap- 
pearing from the earth. The Eastern 
Churches, torn and debased by endless 
heresies, dissensions and schisms, were 
rapidly sinking into that miserable abyss 
of apostasy from which they have never 
since permanently arisen. The condition 
of the Western Church was equally critical ; 



8 ST. PATRICK. 

for although, thanks to the transcendent 
genius of St. Augustine and the divine zeal 
and authority of the Roman Pontiffs, the 
pestilential tide of Pelagianism had been 
forced back to its native Britain, yet storm- 
clouds were gathering in the depths of the 
Northern forests and on the Eastern table- 
lands, which seemed fated to sweep away 
civilization, law, science and religion from 
the face of the globe. Already the first tre- 
mendous billows of barbarian invasion had 
rolled over Europe and spent their fury 
among the sands of Africa. Alaric the 
Goth had ravaged Italy and sacked Rome ; 
Genseric the Vandal sat enthroned in the 
ancient city of Carthage. And this was 
but the beginning of evils ; for innumerable 
hordes were still to come, urged on by love 
of adventure and lust of conquest, but yet 
more by their eagerness to escape the ad- 
vancing shadow of the terrible Huns, those 
most savage of all barbarians, whose gigan- 



ST, PATRICK, 9 

tic empire, dreaded alike by Goth and Ro- 
man, was stretching itself over hills and 
valleys, dense forests and lofty mountain 
peaks, morasses, seas, rivers and trackless 
deserts, from the wall of China to the banks 
of the Rhine. 

It was at this emergency that God spoke 
to the heart of the great saint whose mem- 
ory we are gathered to honor: '' Go forth 
out of thy country and from thy kindred 
and out of thy father's house, and come 
into the land which I shall show thee." 
And where is this land which the Lord has 
chosen ? Where is the home of those who 
are to enjoy light whilst darkness enshrouds 
the earth, and liberty whilst all Europe is 
trampled under the feet of Goths and Huns 
and Vandals ? Far away in the West there 
stood an island, moderate in extent, wonder- 
ful in fertility, vying with the emerald in 
beauty, whose rugged cliffs, beetling over 
the unconquered ocean, marked the extreme 



lo ST, PATRICK. 

limit of the known world. This happy 
island had been for untold centuries inhab- 
ited by a people who, protected by their 
watery ramparts from Scythian incursions 
and Roman conquests, and unimbued with 
the vain subtleties of Grecian philosophy, 
maintained a sturdy independence, and 
tenaciously adhered to the laws, the institu- 
tions and the religion of their ancestors. 

So far as the natural character is con- 
cerned, the Irishman from his very first 
appearance on the stage of history has pre- 
served, almost unaltered, his well-known 
characteristic traits. He has ever been 
generous in his impulses, quick-witted, im- 
pressionable and hospitable. The spirit 
which pervaded the legislation of our 
primitive ancestors was rather that of 
modern than of ancient civilization. Three 
things the Irish people have consistently 
detested down from the days of Milesius — 
despotism, the so-called *' right of primo- 



ST, PATRICK. II 

gefiiture " and landlordism — three evils, 
whose baneful dominion in the island has 
been founded on the ruins of the nation's 
independence. By their ancient law of tan- 
istry, all dignitaries in the land, from the 
chief monarch down to the humblest can- 
finny, were chosen by the free suffrages of 
their countrymen. *' The law of tanistry,'' 
says an unfriendly English historian (Lin- 
gard II, 86), '' regulated the succession of 
all dignities from the highest to the lowest. 
It carefully excluded^ the sons from inherit- 
ing, as of right, the authority of their father ; 
and the tanist, or heir-apparent, was elected 
by the suffrages of the sept during the 
lifetime of the ruling chieftain. The eldest 
of the name and family had, indeed, the 
best title to this distinction ; but his capa- 
city and deserts were previously submitted 
to examination, and the charge of crime, or 
cowardice or deformity might be urged as 
an insuperable objection to his 'appoint- 



12 ST, PATRICK. 

ment." So jealous were our forefathers of 
their political liberties ! Nor did it agree 
with their notions of equity that the first- 
born son should enjoy an exclusive or pre- 
ponderating right of inheriting his father's 
wealth. Their law of gavelkind prescribed 
that a man's movable property should de- 
scend to all his son's equally, without any 
consideration to primogeniture. And what 
about the land ? Why, a landlord has al- 
ways been an odious character in Ireland. 
The primitive Irish preferred pasturage to 
agriculture, and I believe that preference is 
again become quite fashionable among the 
landlords over there. A man in the olden 
times possessed his land only so long as no 
death occurred in his sept. But, to quote 
Lingard, ''at the death of each possessor 
the landed property of the sept was thrown 
into one common mass ; a new division was 
made by the equity or caprice of the can- 
finny, and their respective portions were 



ST. PATRICK, 13 

assigned to the different heads of families 
in the order of seniority." This regulation, 
whilst it impresses us favorably as evincing 
the national love of fair play, must still be 
admitted to have been a crude and primi- 
tive arrangement. But it is amusing to ob- 
serve that what modern socialists vaunt as 
a novel invention of the nineteenth century 
was fairly tried and wisely discarded cen- 
turies ago by the common sense of the Irish 
people. Their criminal code bore the impress 
of the national gentleness ; for it is agreed 
that they always shrank from the actual in- 
fliction of capital punishment. Their religion 
consisted in the worship of all those great 
objects in nature which are most apt to 
excite the veneration of a race highly im- 
aginative and poetical — the sun and moon, 
theconsumingflameand the running stream, 
the mighty tempest, the awful mountain,- 
and, above all, the mysterious shade of 
their oaken groves. And thus they con- 



14 ST. PATRICK. 

tinued for ages unmolested to sing to their 
wild harps the praises of their gods and 
the renown of their ancient heroes. 

This is the nation which the Lord has 
chosen for His pecuHar inheritance ; this 
the land upon whose fair horizon the Sun 
of Justice is about to rise, never more to 
set. Ireland, hitherto thou hast borne no 
yoke. Thy hills have never echoed the 
shouts of invading legions ; no captive 
Irish Chieftain has ever graced the triumph 
of a Roman General. But that which 
Caesar could not do, Christ will do. Pagan 
Rome dared not attack thee ; but Christian 
Rome has already given the signal for the 
assault. Behold, hastening over mountain 
and sea, armed with a staff received from 
Jesus, strengthened with ample jurisdiction 
from the Supreme Pontiff, fearless, un- 
daunted, Patrick advances, a host in him- 
self No novice in the apostolic warfare 
is this new champion of Christianity. In- 



ST. PATRICK, 15 

ured to toil, as well by the hardships of 
bondage as by long years of extraordinary 
penances, instructed in the science of God 
by the most distinguished masters of his 
age, having served under two great com- 
manders in a brilliant campaign against 
heresy in Britain, he brings to the task 
allotted him by Providence ability, skill, 
experience and the prestige of past success. 
He lands upon the coast of Erin, uplifts the 
standard of the Cross and takes possession 
of the island in the name of Christ and of 
His Vicar. The peaceful glories of his 
conquest it is needless to recount, for they 
are indelibly engraven upon the hearts of 
a grateful race. The Christian world 
viewed with astonishment the unprece- 
dented spectacle of a nation gained to the 
faith without bloodshed, without persecu- 
tion, almost without resistance. Never did 
the arrows of the Divine word fly with 
such swift and telling effect as when shot 



1 6 ST. PATRICK. 

from the lips of St. Patrick. That Gospel 
which had fallen powerless upon the proud 
ears of Epicureans and Stoics in the Areo- 
pagus, although preached with all the in- 
spired energy of St. Paul, fell with a crushing 
weight upon the artless idolatry of Tara. 
Before the triumphant march of the Irish 
apostle idols fall and vanish forever ; war- 
like chieftains bow their heads to baptism ; 
princely youths and maidens put on the 
monastic garb ; the Druids are changed into 
priests and bishops, and every harp within 
the land is attuned to sing that Patrick's 
God is become the God of Erin. Thus has 
the obedience of the new patriarch, the 
Christian Abraham, been amply rewarded. 
He is in possession of the land which the 
Lord had shown him. He is become the 
father of a great nation, which, to the end 
of time, will enshrine his blessed name in 
their heart of hearts with religious enthusi- 
asm. Generations shall come and go, but 



ST. PATRICK. 17 

the memory of St. Patrick will never fade. 
Happy Ireland ! which welcomed so great 
an apostle ; and happy apostle ! whose lot 
was cast among so affectionate a people. 

But now his work is done, and the time 
has arrived when the saint is destined to 
receive a second call from Almighty God — 
a call, this time, not to labor, but to repose, 
not to go forth again upon a lifelong pil- 
grimage, but to enter into his eternal home. 
From his episcopal throne in Armagh the 
aged conqueror beholds the entire nation 
subject to his spiritual authority, and 
through him subject to Rome, and through 
Rome subject to Christ. Religion flour- 
ishes throughout the land with the sim- 
plicity of infancy combined with the full 
vigor of manhood. How changed is Erin 
now from what she was that day when 
Patrick in his early youth was cast upon 
her shore a despised and downcast slave. 
And oh ! if we were worthy, my friends, 



i8 ST. PATRICK. 

to enter into the sanctuary of our venerable 
father's meditations, as he recalls one by- 
one the events of his long and checkered 
career. It is only now, when the drama of 
his life is hastening to its close, that he can 
fully appreciate the beautiful unity of de- 
sign which has reigned throughout it, and 
can perceive how all the occurrences of his 
life, even the most painful and the most 
mysterious, were by the hand of God 
woven skillfully into the great mission for 
which he had been chosen. But thy trials 
are now past, thy day's work is finished ; 
*'go forth," faithful servant of the Lord; 
thy Master's arms are extended to embrace 
thee. 

In this supreme moment, one thought 
only, I think, disturbed the fullness of the 
saint's blessedness — the thought that in Ire- 
land no one had been found in all these 
years of his labors who would add to his 
apostleship the crown of martyrdom. How 



ST. PATRICK. 19 

he envied St. Peter his cross, St. Paul his 
sword, St. Bartholomew his knife, St. John 
his caldron ! He had been like these 
princes of the Church in life, wherefore 
shall he be unlike them in death ? They 
witnessed unto Christ amidst excruciating 
torments ; is he placidly to expire on his 
couch ? They died hooted and scoffed at 
by an unbelieving populace ; he finds him- 
self surrounded by loving and attentive 
children. What means this innovation 
upon the fate of Apostles ? But courage, 
great saint ; God looks not upon the gift, 
but upon the heart. Though the Irish 
are not a people destined to make martyrs, 
but rather to become martyrs, yet has not 
thy whole life been one prolonged martyr- 
dom ? Thy slavery, sanctified by prayer 
and patience, was a martyrdom; thy sacri- 
fice of country, of kindred and of the com- 
forts of thy patrician home was a martyr- 
dom ; the ardent zeal which consumed thv 



20 ST. PATRICK. 

life in the hardships of the apostolate was a 
martyrdom; and whatever may be wanting 
to thy crown in the shape of torments or 
persecutions thou shalt receive vicariously 
in the heroic sufferings of thy children in 
future ages. Happy fate ! Ireland's apostle 
suffers not from his children, but in them 
and with them. I love to dwell upon this 
sweet scene of St. Patrick's dying moments. 
It is a spectacle of which Ireland alone can 
boast. She alone manifested for her apostle 
during his lifetime the same filial reverence 
which she has paid to his memory since his 
death. The nation stood at his bedside to 
cheer his declining strength with tender 
solicitude. And the saint, whose love for 
his children was stronger than death, for- 
getful of himself, concentrates his failing 
energies upon the one great object of his 
affections and his triumphs. Gather about 
your aged father, children of Ireland, and 
catch the last precious words which are 



i 



ST. PATRICK, 21 

quivering upon his lips. '' Grant me this 
favor, O Lord," he murmurs, ** that my 
people may remain ever true to the faith I 
have taught them/' With this prophetic 
prayer on his lips, the blessed man of God 
passed away to his heavenly home. He 
passed away ; but his spirit remained with 
his people, and throughout all the vicissi- 
tudes of their extraordinary history they 
have remained ever " true to the faith." 

Indeed, the history of Catholic Ireland 
seems to be only the sequel or prolonga- 
tion of the life of her apostle, and, on the 
other hand, the life of St. Patrick might 
pass for an excellent allegory of the subse- 
quent history of his people. That same 
admirable unity of design which we observe 
running through the life of St. Patrick, that 
same Providential shaping of all circum- 
stances to the working out of a Divinely 
appointed mission, is unmistakably discern- 
ible in the history of Ireland. She was 



22 ST. PATRICK. 

destined to be the sacred island, the eternal 
home of orthodoxy, the seminary of 
apostles ; and this peculiar mission de- 
manded and procured for her the special 
fostering care of Divine Providence. But, 
before advancing further, it may be useful 
to make a few preliminary remarks. 

Man is a very complex piece of work, 
and may therefore be viewed from a hun- 
dred different standpoints. Hence the his- 
tories that can be written of him are as 
multifarious as are the relations in which he 
stands to things seen and unseen. Let the 
warrior, the statesman, the political econo- 
mist, the scientist, the man of letters and 
the moralist, sit down to write histories of 
the self-same race or nation, and you will 
be surprised at the kaleidoscopic variety of 
their respective productions. The man of 
war will entertain you with a narration of 
brilliant exploits on field and wave. Kings 
and emperors at the head of mighty arma- 



ST. PATRICK. 23 

ments are his heroes; sieges and battles, 
the impetuous charge and the gallant re- 
pulse, the roar of the cannon and the 
gleam of the bayonet — these form the mat- 
ter of his drama. The statesman leads you 
into the cabinet of princes, to teach you 
how treaties are concluded, laws enacted 
and the populace ruled. The political 
economist revels among bewildering statis- 
tics, shows how the resources of a country 
are developed, and expounds the philoso- 
phy of supply and demand. The scientist 
follows the student into his quiet chamber, 
and traces the steady advancement of 
human knowledge. The man of letters 
narrates the growth of literature and lan- 
guage. The moralist studies the vicissi- 
tudes of the eternal struggle between virtue 
and vice. Humanity presents a different 
aspect to each of these historians; and 
very often an age which is pronounced by 
one of them most dismal and disastrous 



24 ST, PATRICK, 

will be lauded by another as the brightest 
in the annals of the race. I have men- 
tioned several classes of historians; but 
these do not exhaust the capabilities of the 
subject There is another relation in which 
a man or a nation may be viewed ; and it is 
the highest and noblest of all our relations 
— our relation toward our Almighty Cre- 
ator. This is not only our highest relation ; 
it is, moreover, one which animates all the 
other relations. Men were not created to 
be food for cannon, as the warrior seems to 
suppose; nor to be the dupes of politicians ; 
nor for any other terrestrial object, high or 
low. Man's destiny is to work out the su- 
preme designs of Divine Providence. That 
historian is, therefore, the wisest who, with 
due reverence, endeavors to read human 
events in the light of God's high decrees. 
Now, Ireland's destiny is so patent that 
he who runs may read it. Geographically 
secluded from the profane world, she was 



ST. PATRICK, 25 

chosen by the Almighty, hke Palestine of 
old, to be His inalienable inheritance, the 
impregnable citadel of Revelation and the 
seminary of an Apostolic race. In a world 
so tempestuous as this, where decay and 
mortality are written upon the face of all 
things, where the greatest nations, as well 
as individuals, are prone to fall and to be- 
come persecutors of that faith of which 
they are the natural protectors, it was nec- 
essary that the Church should have some 
nation upon whose fidelity she could se- 
curely rely, and from whose bosom she 
could, in times of dire distress, replenish 
her spent forces. That chosen nation is 
Ireland, my friends. Whilst Rome has 
always been, and will always remain, the 
head of the Church, Ireland is her right 
arm. The Roman Pontiff is the General- 
in-Chief of the people of God ; but the 
Irish are his forlorn hope, ever to be found 
in the thickest of the combat, passionately 



26 ST. PATRICK. 

attached to their Chieftain, and yielding a 
filial and rational obedience to his vener- 
able commands. In thus extolling Ireland 
I have no wish to rob other nations of their 
due meed of praise. Many of them have 
deserved well of the faith. Many of 
them have powerfully contributed to its 
propagation and suffered much for its 
preservation. But none of them contests 
with our Isle of the Saints the honor 
of being in the most complete and tender 
manner consecrated to the religion of 
Jesus Christ. All other nations have 
a profane as well as a sacred history. 
They have achieved power and glory 
through wars waged in other interests 
than those of religion — interests often- 
times opposed to those of religion. The 
history of Ireland since her conversion, 
on the contrary, has become thoroughly 
identified with that of her religion. Her 
national greatness and her national glory 



ST, PATRICK. 27 

are derived from her faith. If she has 
taken to arms, it has been to defend her 
faith ; for Ireland's enemies have invari- 
ably begun by overturning her altars. 

I am aware that this supernatural way 
of presenting Irish history is not palatable 
to some individuals of our race who are 
tainted with the materialistic infidelity 
which infects the present age. Some 
there are — not many, indeed, for mater- 
ialism and infidelity are snakes that do 
not thrive in Irish soil — who hear this 
Catholic doctrine with ill will. They 
think it likely to breed a fatalistic apathy 
in the national breast. They fear it may 
dull the edge of patriotism and reconcile 
the popular heart to oppression and trea- 
son. Impious folly ! Do they imagine 
the Irish are like the Turks, that they 
cannot distinguish God's eternal purpose 
from man's petty malice? Believing as 
we do that Christ's sufferings were pre- 



28 ST. PATRICK. 

destined, are we the less disposed to de- 
test the cowardice of the unjust judge, 
the fury of the infatuated populace or the 
base treachery of Judas Iscariot? You 
forget, too, my infidel philosopher, that 
we are discoursing, not upon Ireland's 
unknown future, but upon her glorious 
career in the past. That past cannot be 
understood without a constant reference 
to God's adorable counsels. To the eye 
of the infidel history presents nothing but 
a disjointed succession of contradictory 
events, which follow each other without 
order, without meaning. It is only when 
we survey the life of an individual or of 
a nation from the standpoint of Divine 
Providence that we are enabled to soar 
above " the whips and scorns of time, the 
oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con- 
tumely," and to seize things with the in- 
telligent eye of the Christian philosopher. 
But to return from this digression. 



ST, PATRICK. 29 

There are, as I remarked, so many points 
of analogy between the life of St. Patrick 
and the history of Catholic Ireland that a 
poetical mind might fancy the saint ended 
his mortal career only to begin life over 
again, on a grander scale, in his children. 
The life of St. Patrick divides itself into 
three distinct periods, the first two of 
which are preparatory to the glorious la- 
bors of the third. The first sixteen years 
of his life were years of peace and happi- 
ness, unmarred by sin or sorrow. During 
this period the young saint, sheltered from 
this evil world in the bosom of a religious 
home, and surrounded by models of Chris- 
tian virtue, expanded in the rich bloom of 
unsullied innocence. Then followed the 
epoch of his trials in bondage, when the 
tender plant was plucked from its native 
soil and cast upon the bleak Northern 
hills. Here in the stern school of adver- 
sity the delicate became rugged ; the child 



30 



ST. PATRICK. 



was developed into the man ; and the mod- 
est youth began to dream of bold enter- 
prises and vast spiritual conquests. Thus 
St. Patrick was trained to the Apostolate ;, 
and did not Divine Providence pursue the 
self-same course with the Irish nation ? In 
the history of Catholic Ireland we discern 
these same distinct periods — the blameless, 
childhood, the stormy adolescence and the 
apostolic manhood. 

I. Whilst darkness and desolation were 
covering the rest of the earth — whilst Huns 
and Saxons, Goths and Vandals, Moors 
and Saracens were carrying despair and 
death into all corners of Europe, Asia and 
Africa — whilst one by one the bright lights 
of ancient Christendom — Jerusalem, An- 
tioch, Alexandria, Carthage — were being 
extinguished — Ireland, exempted by a spe- 
cial grace of the Almighty from the uni- 
versal misery, continued for three centuries 
to be the unmolested sanctuary of the 



ST. PATRICK. 31 

faith, the asylum of learning, the nursery 
of saints and missionaries. How wistfully 
we now look back through all the inter- 
vening horrors upon those happy days of 
the nation's childhood, when, quite uncon- 
scious of the dark future in store for her, 
she consecrated her virgin heart to the 
service of God; when churches and mon- 
asteries crowned each hill and nestled in 
each dale ; when the air was ever laden 
with melodious psalmody and the perfume 
of prayer; when, unable to contain within 
her generous Celtic breast the fullness of 
her joy, she sent forth, as a presage of her 
future apostolic labors, her Columbas to 
the Isles of the North, her Columbanuses 
into the heart of Europe, and launched her 
Brandans upon the western waves to search 
out new realms for Christ. 

The exceptional character of Ireland's 
position was fully appreciated by the other 
nations of Europe. She was looked upon 



32 



ST. PATRICK. 



as sacred ground, and her people were 
recognized as enjoying in a very special 
manner the friendship of our Saviour. I 
narrate a thrice-told tale. To her shelter- 
ing bosom there flocked from all Christen- 
dom studious souls thirsty for knowledge, 
repentant souls longing for seclusion, vir- 
tuous souls in quest of refuge and models; 
and they found knowledge in her schools, 
discipline in her cloisters, and the humblest 
peasants in the land could teach them, by 
precept and example, the path of Christian 
perfection. For the Irish at their conver- 
sion did not put on religion as an outward 
garment. The Catholic faith sank deep 
into their souls, and became the center of 
their private and public life. It absorbed 
and assimilated all their thoughts and as- 
pirations. For their faith they lived and 
studied; in it they reposed their individual 
happiness and their national glory. 

2. But a change was to come over the 



ST. PATRICK. 2>Z 

face of the island. Indeed, these centuries 
of happy tranquillity were intended to be 
only a period of preparation, only an intro- 
duction to its history. A Christian nation 
can no more than a Christian individual 
hope to follow Christ by any other way 
than that of the Cross ; and as w^ell the 
nation as the individual must employ such 
periods of peace and quiet in preparation 
for the struggle which is certain, sooner or 
later, to supervene. That fateful day at 
length arrived for Ireland. I can fancy, 
my brethren, a scene in heaven like unto 
that which ushered in the sorrows of pa- 
tient Job. Once more, methinks, '' on a 
certain day when the sons of God came to 
stand before the Lord," the foul prince of 
darkness obtruded his hateful presence 
upon that blessed company. Then spoke 
our Divine Lord: "Hast thou considered 
my chosen people, that there are none like 
them in the earth, simple and upright men, 
3 



34 ST. PATRICK, 

and fearing God and avoiding evil ?" But 
Satan, answering, said: '*Doth Erin fear 
God in vain ? Hast not thou made a fence 
for her and her house and all her substance 
round about, blessed the works of her 
hand, and her possession hath increased 
on the earth ? But stretch forth thy hand, 
and touch all that she hath, and her bone 
and her flesh, and then shalt thou see that 
she will bless thee to Thy face." The Al- 
mighty, willing to glorify His elect and 
the power of His grace, took up the chal- 
lenge so impudently cast before Him, and 
gave permission to Satan to wreak his fury 
on the devoted nation, making, however, 
the same reservation in her favor which He 
had made in the case of His servant Job, 
that the Evil One must spare its life. A 
conflict thereupon ensued which stands 
unparalleled in the annals of the human race. 
Never were the engines of infernal warfare 
brought to bear upon the children of men 



ST. PATRICK. 35 

with such preternatural skill, with such 
overwhelming force, with such fiendish 
cunning, with such stubborn persistence, 
yet never did the infernal serpent sustain 
so thorough, so crushing a defeat. Wars 
and famines ; invasions, conquests, confis- 
cations ; the cruel steel of a ferocious sol- 
diery; the brutal whip of an implanted 
band of robbers ; the haughty insolence of 
a State-fed heretical clergy, and the canting 
hypocrisy of swarms of professional pros- 
elytizers; the ingenious machinery of an 
infamous legislation — in fact, what evils 
that can afflict a nation were not made use 
of in the attempt to eradicate the faith 
from the breasts of the Irish? Yet every 
new onslaught of the enemy issued in a 
fresh triumph for Catholic Ireland. Satan 
wrested from her everything but that 
which was the sole aim of all his efforts — 
her Faith. 

No doubt, my friends, the subject of Ire- 



36 ST. PATRICK, 

land's unutterable woes has often forced it- 
self upon your minds, and at the remem- 
brance of her sufferings the tear has sprung 
to your eye, and your cheeks have burned 
and your breast heaved with just indigna- 
tion at the inhuman wretches who, age 
after age, have lent themselves to Satan to 
be the instruments of his cruelty. But 
have you never looked beyond the physical 
miseries of each day and hour? Or have 
the wails of Erin's exiles, the dying moans^ 
of her outcast children, as they famish by 
the wayside, and the bitter torments of her 
legions of martyrs so stunned your soul as 
to make you incapable of appreciating the 
moral grandeur of the scene? Oh, then, 
you have never conceived thoughts worthy 
of Ireland ! You have seen nothing but 
her humiliations ; you have not discovered 
the Divine glory which shines through 
them. You have seen the wretched work 
of man, but not the all-shaping, merciful 



ST. PATRICK, 37 

hand of God. My mission, brethren, is 
one, not of hatred, but of charity ; hence 
you must not expect to hear from me 
either a pathetic narration of Ireland's 
wrongs or a vehement invective against 
her oppressors. Indeed, whilst I am very 
far from wishing to extenuate the infamy 
of those who have outraged and devastated 
the land of our fathers, yet, instead of 
fostering rancor against them, I feel more 
disposed to bless their infatuated malice, 
which, under the supreme control of Provi- 
dence, has so chastened and sanctified the 
nation as to make it the model of Christen- 
dom. If Ireland, like the other nations, 
had '' rested on her lees, and had not been 
poured from vessel to vessel nor gone into 
captivity" (Jer. 48: 11), she, too, would 
have been a profane nation, with her meas- 
ure of worldly greatness and with worldly 
ambitions and aspirations ; but she would 
not have attained that noble station in the 



38 ST. PATRICK. 

Church to which she was predestined, and 
for which a long series of trials was the 
indispensable preparation. Who does not 
sympathize with St. Patrick under the lash 
of his captors ? But Patrick's bondage was 
necessary for Ireland ; and, brethren, Ire- 
land's bondage was necessary for the world. 
She was led into captivity, not only that 
the world might have a brilliant illustration 
of the heroism of Christian patience and 
resignation, but, especially, that it might 
have what it sorely needed, a nation of 
Apostles. 

3. Yes, my friends, after withstanding for 
ages the open violence and the insidious 
wiles of Satan, Ireland was advanced to 
the highest station in the Church. '* God," 
says St. Paul, *' has placed in His Church, 
first of all, the Apostles ;" and by an un- 
paralleled grace the Irish people were raised 
in mass to this sublime office. Other na- 
tions have, indeed, given birth to illustrious 



ST. PATRICK. 39 

apostles. Spain may well be proud of St. 
Francis Xavier, Britain of St. Boniface and 
Italy of St Augustine. But Ireland has 
done still more : she has not sent forth 
isolated missionaries ; she has gone forth 
herself to the extreme ends of the earth. 
Oh, how often in these latter days has not 
that stern but salutary voice of God re- 
sounded through the island : " Go forth 
out of thy country and from thy kindred 
and out of thy father's house ;" and even 
though that high decree came disguised in 
the harsh tones of a bailiff, with what filial 
acquiescence in the Divine Will have not 
millions of her children bidden a sad fare- 
well to their native land, their humble 
hearth and their dearest kindred, and gone 
forth to penetrate the wilds of America, the 
jungles of India and the sands of Australia ! 
Truly, " there are no speeches nor lan- 
guages where their voices are not heard ; 
their sound is gone forth into all the earth." 



40 ST. PATRICK. 

With unflagging zeal and superhuman en- 
durance they have planted the faith under 
every star of heaven, making the desert and 
the wilderness bloom with all the beauty 
of Carmel and Saron. Oh ! island of the 
saints, how sublime is thy destiny ! Every- 
thing pertaining to thee is extraordinary 
and supernatural. Thou seemest to belong 
to a different world from this, thou art so 
unlike the other nations of the earth. Thou 
hast been trampled on by every passer-by. 
Thy haughty invaders have disdained to 
call thee a nation. They have wished to 
sweep thee, with thy language and thy in- 
stitutions and thy religion, from the face of 
the earth. Yet, lo! that which men de- 
spised and rejected, the same has become 
the corner-stone of the edifice of God. The 
more they trampled on thee, the more 
deeply didst thou cast thy roots ; the more 
they shook thy aged trunk, the more rapidly 
didst thou shoot forth thy far-spreading 
branches. 



ST. PATRICK, 41 

What is there in nature more beautiful to 
behold than a majestic forest tree in the 
spring-time, as it decks itself with the lux- 
uriance of its foliage and blushes in the 
pride of its variegated blossoms ? How 
you wish it could remain ever thus undis- 
turbed ! But that ought not to be ; for then 
it would live and die in selfish barrenness. 
To be of immortal usefulness it must, first, 
be shorn of its beauty ; the fierce equinoc- 
tial blasts must wrench its seeds from it, 
and spread them broadcast over the earth, 
and cover them from the wrath of winter 
with the leaves torn from its moaning 
branches. Thieving birds must carry away 
its fruits to scatter them on a distant soil. 
If, then, you return to view that noble plant 
after wind and storms have worked their 
will upon it, you will hardly recognize in 
the dreary, naked wood the object of your 
admiration a few months ago. But wait a 
little. The winter will soon be past, and 



42 ST. PATRICK. 

you will find that the harm has not been 
serious, much less irreparable- It will bud 
and blossom again in a glorious resurrec- 
tion ; and behold ! far and near a thousand 
saplings are springing up, each reproducing 
the vigor of the parent stock. In like 
manner, whilst nations which have enjoyed 
serene prosperity have, so far as the sacred 
cause of Revelation is concerned, lived and 
died sluggish and inactive, Ireland, rudely 
shaken by every wind of heaven, has, with- 
out losing much at home, multiplied her- 
self in every quarter of the globe. Why, 
then, ought we not to bless the whirlwind 
which has scattered our noble race ? The 
tears of the exile were necessary to the 
propagation of the faith ; and whilst we 
sympathize sincerely with the suffering 
individuals, we must never lose sight of 
the Divine purpose which their sufferings 
are predestined to effect. 

In the prosecution of this analogy be- 



57: PATRICK. 43 

tween the life of St. Patrick and the history 
of his people, we discover another point of 
resemblance well worthy of consideration. 
St. Patrick was sent into captivity that he 
might become familiar with the language 
and customs of the people whom he was 
chosen to evangelize. So, too, the Irish, 
having been selected by the Lord for the 
important work of evangelizing a great 
part of the world, were subjected to the 
sway of that nation whose wonderful enter- 
prise has made her language the most gen- 
erally spoken by the human species. How 
little did the English dream, when they 
were planting their proud banner on every 
remote corner of the globe, on every island, 
on every coast, that Providence was making 
use of their ambition for the advantage of 
a nation which they despised and of a 
religion which they detested? Yet such 
the event proves to have been the case. 
England's discoveries and conquests simply 



44 ST, PATRICK. 

paved the way for the Irish and their holy 
religion. England forced the Irish to drop 
the language of their fathers, and adopt 
that of their oppressors. She was but too 
glad to offer them her ships, and induce 
them to establish themselves in her colonies. 
But, my friends, England has lost, and is 
losing, her hold upon her colonial posses- 
sions ; whereas the Irish and their blessed 
faith remain, and will remain, please God, 
till the end of time. 

But let us bring this discourse to a con- 
clusion. I have endeavored to show how 
far-reaching and enduring St. Patrick's 
work has been. He is become, in very 
deed, the father of a great nation, whose 
distinctive trait is its inviolable fidelity to 
God. Like their apostle, the Irish people 
were great and holy in the days of their pros- 
perity; their greatness and holiness were 
enhanced during the long ages of their trials ; 
and they have arrived at the summit of spir- 



ST. PATRICK. 45 

itual glory now that God has scattered them 
far and wide to be the salt of the earth and 
the light of the world. 

Be mindful, therefore, of your mission, 
Irishmen and children of Irishmen, and 
at the same time appreciate the formidable 
responsibility which that mission lays upon 
you. No doubt, our great race will achieve 
its sublime destiny, notwithstanding the 
frailties of individuals ; for though there 
may be weak and unworthy brethren 
amongst us — though there may be Irish- 
men who are drunkards, and Irishmen 
who are dishonest, and Irishmen who by 
other vices dishonor their country and 
scandalize the unbeliever — yet the mass of 
our people are, in practice and principle, 
*'true to the faith.'' But it is well for us to 
remember that it was for no trivial purpose 
we or our fathers were transplanted into 
this fertile region. Divine Providence has 
placed us here, as on a mountain top, that 



46 ST. PATRICK. 

men may have full scope to observe us, and 
may value our faith by the works of right- 
eousness which it engenders within us. 
And, my friends, this great American nation 
into which we are incorporated deserves 
well of us ; for when the old world had 
cast us off, it received us with open arms 
and welcomed us to an equal share in the 
blessings which the Lord of nature lavishes 
upon it. But it is our privilege, as well as 
our duty, to make a grateful return for this 
hospitable reception ; for whilst America 
possesses in abundance gold and silver, 
food and raiment, yet, in a higher sense, 
she is sadly destitute. She lacks that better 
food which fills the soul, and this food she 
must receive from our hands. Faith per- 
fected almost to vision, supernatural love of 
God, unsullied chastity— these are the 
spiritual riches with which the half-clad, 
half-starved emigrant comes laden to these 
shores, and they are an ample remunera- 



ST. PATRICK. 47 

tion for the many kindnesses which he re- 
ceives. 

In conclusion, let us, as is meet and 
proper, cease not to offer up fervent prayers 
to God, through the intercession of St. 
Patrick, for the welfare of the land of our 
fathers. She has suffered enough ; she 
has been tried enough. ''How long, O 
Lord, how long!'' Already through the 
many rents made by the stormy indigna- 
tion of the civilized world in the wretched 
patchwork of this last of Irish Coercion 
Acts which is now weighing heavily upon 
her, we can catch most certain glimpses of 
those happier days, long sighed for, long 
deferred; and I am confident that when 
the noon-day of her temporal glory shall 
arrive, Ireland will remain, as she has hith- 
erto remained, true to her mission, '' true 
to the faith." But of this I am sure, that 
if, as we earnestly desire, peace with its 
abundance and liberty with her manifold 



48 



57: PATRICK, 



blessings return to nestle among her green 
hills, she will ever look back with an honest 
pride upon the ages of her sorrows; she 
will '^ rejoice for the days in which she was 
humbled, for the days when her eyes saw 
evils." 




I 



